ABOUT US

Steve Friess is a 2011-12 recipient of the prestigious Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan, where he will be studying the impact of the rapid expansion of Vegas-style gaming on Asia. He's a podcaster, author and Vegas-based freelance journalist who writes regularly for USA Today, The New York Times, Newsweek and many others. His column, "The Strip Sense" appears every Thursday in the Las Vegas Weekly. His books include "Gay Vegas" from Huntington Press and Knopf Mapguides' "Las Vegas."Friess co-hosts the weekly celebrity interview podcast The Strip Podcast "The Strip" with his husband, Miles Smith, the executive producer at KSNV-TV, Channel 3. For four years, Steve also co-hosted The Petcast with Las Vegas Sun education scribe Emily Richmond.

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Thursday, August 12, 2010

I've got an AOL News piece examining some Angle-Reid news that will post on Friday, but here's a quick preview that also provides more fuller quotes than I'm capable to use in a news story.The topic of my Monday chat with Wynn, by phone as he vacationed in an undisclosed location abroad, turned to Sen. Harry Reid, whom Steve Wynn has spared from his diatribes against the Obama Administration. Well, until now. Check it out:

Friess: I’m curious to know what you think would happen to the state if Sharron Angle beat Harry Reid.

Wynn: I don’t know. I am so confused, Steve, about what’s going on in America. I’m so deeply concerned about the shape that our government has allowed our economy to get into and it precedes this government, it precedes Harry’s role as majority leader. ... [long discussion of problems of debt and entitlements] ... And that means Nevada is at risk not whether it’s Sharron Angle or Harry Reid, but whether our government in Washington can somehow reverse the course it’s been on, the juggernaut of reckless, irresponsible spending and borrowed money without destroying the economic health of the country permanently. ... [more economic discussion] And I don’t blame anybody, I don’t blame Harry, and I don’t know if Sharron Angle’s election of defeat is the issue or our time.

Friess: Are you still supporting Harry Reid?

Wynn: I support Harry Reid. I support Harry Reid in the sense of 'Harry, make it go away, make it stop.' Something’s gotta be done, it can’t go on this way. I don’t know Sharron Angle, but I know Harry and I complained to him over the phone.

Friess: And what did he say when you complained to him over the phone?

Wynn: He said, well, he doesn’t actually respond directly. [long discussion of the health care bill.] You don’t get any response from the Congress through Harry or anybody else to this debate. I think these politicans are trapped on a runaway train that is controlled by the next election cycle. I think none of them know what to do except to say I can’t do anything unless I’m here. And if I don’t do this, I won’t be here, and if I don’t do that I won’t be Senate Majority Leader.

Friess: Does the conversation about the Harry Reid race get difficult for you because while you ideologically oppose a lot of what Harry has done, he is your long-term friend?

Wynn: Yes. In a word, yes. I think that applies to almost everybody in the upper end of the business community in this state. … Am I conflicted by my ideological differences with what the Congress has done and my friendship with Harry? My answer to that quesiton is yes and I’ve expressed frustration over that conflict to my friend Harry over the phone. I've expressed it to our two [Democratic] congresswomen, too. I’m a health care provider. I know what that bill is going to do. They don’t, they do not understand it. And it’s exactly the opposite of what they tried to do. How it happened is the President got them on a track and they all lost control of the process and they produced a piece of shit bill and they were faced with the idea as Americans revolted, they were faced with either giving up and admitting they’d made a terrible mistake or passing something that would have a few talking points to it. And Nancy Pelosi convinced them it would be better to have the talking points for the November election. And Harry did, too.

Not surprisingly, Angle's folks loved this and Reid's folks spun it. I'll post the link to the AOL News piece when it's up.

2
comments:

mike_ch
said...

Will us political/policy wonks get to enjoy the "[long discussion of problems of debt and entitlements]" bit in the podcast? It might seem boring to you, but it'd be nice to have a little political theory in depth, instead of just getting the sound bites and talking points he's been using on CNBC/Fox News for the past eight months or so.

THE STRIP FINALE

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